Suppressing Dissent in the Age of Tolerance

If you want to know where the Left is taking the country, a quick trip to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website is instructive.

There, you will find a “hate map,” on which the precise locations of reputable Christian organizations are listed, along with skinheads, Nazis and other actually disreputable groups. Above the map is a photo of what appear to be storm troopers, none of whom resembles Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins, but that’s beside the point.

On August 15, 2012, the hate map was used by would-be mass murderer Floyd Lee Corkins II, who walked into the FRC lobby in Washington, D.C., with a loaded gun and a backpack full of 80 more rounds of ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches.

Convicted on Feb. 6, 2013 under the District’s domestic terrorism law and sentenced to 25 years in prison, Mr. Corkins told investigators that he was inspired by the SPLC hate map to target FRC, and that he had planned to murder as many people as possible and stuff chicken sandwiches into their faces. Chick-fil-A’s owners and FRC support natural marriage.

I worked for 10 years at the Family Research Council, and I personally know many of the fine current staff, including Leo Johnson, the unarmed building manager who saved his colleagues by taking a bullet that shattered his arm while he subdued Mr. Corkins. D.C.’s then-Mayor Vincent Gray rightly esteemed Mr. Johnson for his heroism with the city’s first Medal of Honor. But he and other officials haven’t addressed what prompted Mr. Corkins to go berserk and nearly pull off a mass killing. Maybe they don’t want to know.

On the other hand, liberals who connect invisible dots want the government to throttle conservative talk radio, insert government “researchers” in the nation’s newsrooms, sic the Internal Revenue Service on the tea parties, and search the entire Internet and broadcasting universe for “hate” material that might trigger violence. Somehow, they have no problem with the demonstrably dangerous invectives against conservative Christians emanating from the SPLC and its “hate map.”

Maybe it’s because the SPLC has long been the U.S. Government’s prime source for what constitutes a “hate group.” Although the FBI recently dropped the SPLC from a website, the Justice Department continues to list it as a resource.

The Alabama-based SPLC has a project called Teaching Tolerance, with a website and print periodical of that name aimed at educators. Much of it deals with countering bullies.